I have finally begun believing in destiny. Why else would someone with an incredibly unclassy language like Shobha De (or is it Shobhaa De or Shoba De? Given her affection for numerology, one can never be too sure) survive in this day when India has so many good English writers?

Offering little of value, her ‘columns’ inevitably snap and sneer at people who cannot defend themselves. They read like hysterical diatribes and smack of a valiant effort to sound superior by employing the old-fashioned art of ridiculing others. In her column of June 5 in Deccan Chronicle, she chose Sri Sri Ravi Shankar to breathe venom on from her seemingly bottomless pit of self-replenishing ire.

It is not clear what aches De. Is it her frustration with happy people who are content to do yoga, meditate and reach out for a higher goal in life? Is it her vaulting ambition that has perhaps not found its object, notwithstanding her stupendous networking skills? She is happy to hobnob with Raj Thackeray, even admire him. He is after all powerful even if as a nuisance monger and therefore worthy.

Unlike the Raj Thackeray types, Sri Sri represents a class of people who preach a higher good and spends money collected transparently from rich AND poor not on himself or the organisation but on countless rural benefit programmes that have never been documented by the media and that would be too much trouble for someone like De to look up.

De’s credo involves living it up at parties, posing for pretty pictures with book publishers, beefing up egos of influential people who can promote her agenda and writing reams of super-unworthy columns. It’s a bit ridiculous for someone who clearly has low credibility and resides on a far inferior plane to be spouting gyan on a spiritual crusader with a global canvas.

Not for her reaching out to the poor and underprivileged like Sri Sri does, unless she gets the mileage for it. One cannot expect her to begin to understand what he does. So while she can be forgiven by charitable souls for lack of depth, the publisher certainly cant be. He is expected to exercise a sense of responsibility and cannot be condoned for rolling out her demented blather.

Her column give rise to an idle thought that is also a very compelling one. Would she have dared write so loosely about any other non-Hindu religious leader? If a bullet, God forbid, had landed in a suburban place of worship of any other religion and the head of that place was being grilled by TV channels ad nauseam, one suspects De and her ilk would drool with sympathy over his plight and, far from talking about his “bleating,” she would be shedding glycerine tears in solidarity for the man’s monumental suffering at the hands of the media and the assaulter.

Any discerning media person would have got disgusted with the way the channels kept on and on about how Sri Sri called it an attack when he clearly and repeatedly said that it was for the police to decide what it was. Far from getting antsy about the assault, Sri Sri clearly said he had forgiven the person, whoever he was. Even that drew criticism from the mighty De for some underhand reasons.

If there was someone who looked aggrieved in this episode, it was Sri Sri and the Art of Living even as the media, predominantly CNN-IBN, distorted everything they said. Here’s a sample:

AOL version: “We didn’t see the shot, merely heard it.” 

Media version implying a cook-up : “Only Sri Sri’s close followers heard the shot.”

AOL version: “We realised it could be an assault only after we heard about the injury. The police took time reaching as they are about 45 minutes away."

Media version: “Sri Sri unhappy that the police came 45 minutes late.”

AOL version: “We don’t know if Guruji was the target. He could have been. That’s for the police to find out.”

Media version: “AOL says Guruji was certainly the target.”

AOL version: “Guruji had left the podium and was walking to his car slowly greeting devotees. He took five minutes to reach the car, and heard the shot as soon as he sat in the car.”

Media version implying he is lying: “Guruji had sat in the car five minutes before the shot was fired but he claims he was present.”

AOL version: “The police call it an incident. A shot has been fired. It’s not a mere incident.”

Media version: “AOL says it was an out and out attack on Guruji.” The AOL may not be aware of the definition of an incident in police lingo as opposed to an attack but the media should certainly have got its grounding on these basic terms.

AOL version: “We have forgiven the attacker.”

Media version: “How can he be so calm if the attack had actually happened so that he doesn’t mind forgiving?” Either way, you lose.

Chidambaram: It “may be, maybe,” a dispute between two disciples.

Media version: “Home minister says it was a dispute between two disciples.”

For a journalist like me, it was a challenge to watch a single channel without raising my eyebrows every minute. There was no application of mind that would have first and foremost called into question Chidambaram’s controversial statement. Every single channel and paper lapped it up unquestioningly and greedily. As did enterprising De, quick to believe the powerful once again, and brazenly distort this bit further in her column.

A mediocre journalist with basic integrity, and perhaps some intelligence, would have asked Chidambaram, “How the hell can you, a responsible figure, speculate like this without even a single clue or evidence? And if you want to hazard wild guesses, why not assume it “maybe, maybe” Osama bin laden?”

The media had a sound motive to sensationalise and generally defame the spiritual leader because one, he is unfortunately a Hindu guru; two, there is a unanimous reassurance that he would not call an all-out war on his detractors a la Raj Thackeray; three, he is not bothered about the media or acclaimed frauds like De or Da.

If De indeed had any discerning powers that she should ideally possess as a pulp writer and wannabe media appraiser (not critic), she would have questioned the coverage of the episode which was so transparently flawed and not bleated about her disgust with happy souls doing good work.

It is a tragedy of Indian media that every poorly projected news episode passes off unnoticed and uncontested while pathetic columnists write the first reckless thing on the top of their spongy heads that achieve the task of filling up the mandatory column space.